Hey Colossus – Radio Static High: Album stream

Some bands like to challenge themselves by becoming increasingly experimental. But Hey Colossus, a six piece from London/Somerset who’ve long specialised in concocting an unholy racket, have found it more stimulating to head the other way.

As guitarist Jonathan Richards puts it: “After 12 years functioning in a noiserock/doom/kraut/whatever scene of sorts and being aware of unwanted repetition, we feel it is more subversive for us to compose songs with rigid song structures than it is to absentmindedly clang off another riff-athon.”

Fans worrying that Radio Static High – their second album this year – could be giving Taylor Swift a run for her money can relax. The band may cite Fleetwood Mac and Cypress Hill as influences here, but any effect those artist’s may have had on this record remain muted. Or, more accurately, bludgeoned under the kind of piledriver riffs so brutally delivered on tracks like the aptly named March of the Headaches.

Elsewhere, the Can-esque Hop the Railings and the hazy, meandering psych of Memories of Wonder do allow chinks of pop light to shine through, but this is still raw, uncompromising stuff.